was second cousin to Mr Thorne of Ullathorne, a Barsetshire squire
living in the neighbourhood of Barchester, and who boasted that his
estate had remained in his family, descending from Thorne to Thorne,
longer than had been the case with any other estate or any other family
in the county.

But Dr Thorne was only a second cousin; and, therefore, though he was
entitled to talk of the blood as belonging to some extent to himself,
he had no right to lay claim to any position in the county other than
such as he might win for himself if he chose to locate himself in it.
This was a fact of which no one was more fully aware than our doctor
himself.

His father, who had been first cousin of a former Squire Thorne, had
been a clerical dignitary in Barchester, but had been dead now many
years. He had had two sons; one he had educated as a medical man, but
the other, and the younger, whom he had intended for the Bar, had not
betaken himself in any satisfactory way to any calling. This son had
been first rusticated from Oxford, and then expelled; and thence
returning to Barchester, had been the cause to his father and brother
of much suffering.

Old Dr Thorne, the clergyman, died when the two brothers were yet young
men, and left behind him nothing but some household and other property
of the value of about two thousand pounds, which he bequeathed to
Thomas, the elder son, much more than that having been spent in
liquidating debts contracted by the younger. Up to that time there had
been close harmony between the Ullathorne family and that of the
clergyman; but a month or two before the doctor's death--the period of
which we are speaking was about two-and-twenty years before the